


song for a scribbled out name

by hi_raeth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Post-TLJ, kylo is sad rey is overwhelmed and everyone else is confused, redemption... kinda, so much fluff and cuddling and here have a happy ending, this was supposed to be angst and conflict but now there's fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-03-31 05:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13968726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_raeth/pseuds/hi_raeth
Summary: Taking out the entirety of the First Order's high command and initiating peace talks with the Resistance is great and all, but it doesn't automatically make him Ben Solo again.(Kylo kills a bunch of people to prove that he can change. Rey is once bitten, twice shy.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Star Wars fic ever! Warning: I've only watched IV-VIII once per movie, and 80% of my knowledge about this fandom comes from reading fanfic. So please, be gentle and ignore the occasional mistake.
> 
> Title taken from Florence + The Machine's _Falling_.

On a rare sunny day a little over six months after Crait, the sky over the new Resistance base is darkened by the sudden appearance of a First Order ship.

Radio silence from their enemies has allowed them to get by with zero losses and even a few new recruits, but the Resistance is still a shadow of what it once was. Even with the sun in her eyes, Rey can’t escape the discouraging sight that greets her as she joins the others on the surface: no more than fifty soldiers spread out over a disproportionately vast clearing, and barely enough weapons to arm them all.

In any other scenario, Rey imagines they would have made a run for it by now; piled everyone into the four ships they have left as soon as the sirens started blaring and lived to fight another day. But it’s nearly fifty soldiers against a handful of enemies at most, given the size of the approaching TIE fighter, and the Resistance has grown tired of running away.

“Do we shoot?” Finn asks, turning to Leia and Poe for orders.

“But they’re not shooting,” Rose points out, brows furrowed in confusion. “Isn’t that a little weird?”

Rey vaguely registers the sound of Poe’s voice joining the conversation, but all she can hear is a faint ringing in her ears as the ship comes close enough for her to realize that it’s no ordinary TIE fighter.

She discreetly addresses Leia, doing her best not to attract attention from the others. “It’s him.”

The General, still weak from the continuous blows to her health she’s suffered in the last few months, seems to wilt in front of Rey’s very eyes. Poe is quick to return to her side and offer her support, allowing her to rest her weight against him. “Don’t shoot,” she tells her second-in-command. “Tell them not to shoot.”

“But, General-”

“Look at that goddamn ship, Commander. He could’ve blasted us all to bits by now if that’s what he came here for,” Leia snaps, her wavering voice doing little to temper the forcefulness of her words. “Either he’s here to finally make an orphan of himself, or something’s changed. So tell them not to shoot, do you hear me?”

As Poe reluctantly conveys the General’s orders, Rey keeps her eyes trained on the ship and her mind focused on the pilot within. He’s alone, as far as she can tell. She’d be able to tell a lot more if she hadn’t closed the Bond, discern whether Leia is indeed in danger or why he’s come here if not to kill his mother. But there’s a reason she cut him off in the first place, and if there’s even the slightest possibility that they might fight today she can’t risk letting him inside her head once again.

The entire clearing watches with baited breath as the ship lands, and Leia’s sharp gasp rings across the clearing as the pilot reveals himself.

“Kylo Ren,” Poe states loud and clear as he steps forward. Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees Finn and Rose supporting a worryingly pale Leia as she drinks in the sight of the son she hasn’t seen in years, the son who has come here today to either end her or return to her. Rey wishes she could reach out to Leia, wishes she could at least whisper _you’ll be safe, I won’t let him do to you what he did to Han, never again._

“State your business here,” Poe demands just as Rey steels herself to chance a look at a man she’s not sure she’ll recognize anymore. _Oh good_ , she thinks to herself as she looks the Supreme Leader of the First Order in the eye, _he’s not wearing that stupid mask_.

It’s a ridiculous first thought, especially given how pale and drawn Kylo Ren looks _. But it’s all an act_ , Rey tells herself, because she can feel how powerful he still is, how his sharp mind is manipulating the Force to create a shield of some kind even as his physical body limps down the ramp of his ship.

He won’t stop looking at her, and Rey _refuses_ to blink, refuses to take her eyes off him for even a split second when they still don’t know why he’s here, when there’s still a chance he might turn his shield into something more malicious and aim it at any given person standing in the clearing.

Finally, he speaks. “The war is over.”

His declaration carries across the clearing, but they both know she’s the only one he’s talking to. The Resistance is set abuzz with wary speculation and tense warnings to _stay on guard, keep your hands on your blasters, we don’t know what this means_ , but no one moves to stop him as he makes his way toward her. She moves forward not to meet him halfway, but to put some distance between him and the others. This is still the man who chose power over redemption, who chose the Dark side over her Light, who chose everything else over the people who love him.

The unfamiliar shield moves with him, and grows to encompass her as the distance between them dwindles away to two feet at most. For all Rey knows, this means that now he can attack her and she can attack him and there’s nothing the others will be able to do about it, blocked by the Force and forced to watch. But instead of feeling trapped, she feels… warm. At peace. _Safe_ , even, and she is instantly reminded of the last time she felt this way and how that ended for her.

There was a time when she let Kylo Ren lull her into a false sense of security, when she let him trick her into seeing what she wanted to see in order to draw her to him. In her mind she can see the flickering flames, can hear the dull roar of waves crashing against the harsh cliffs of Ahch-To, can almost feel his hand–

In reality, a man she wishes she could still call Ben stands in front of her and announces, “The First Order is gone.” There are collective gasps, heated conversations, frantic whispers, but all she can hear is blood rushing in her ears and a faint sigh in her mind.

_Rey._

He closes the distance between them then, leans down to touch his forehead to hers. She feels feverish where they meet, as if he is a brand searing itself upon her skin for all to see. “I burned it all down,” he murmurs for her ears only.

She lets him fall into her, lets his hands rest on either side of her waist like a cage even as the whispers turn from speculation about the First Order’s supposed demise to speculation about them, even as her skin prickles with discomfort and her feet itch with the desire to run and her mind screams at her to _get away get away get away._

The minute he’s distracted by Leia, she runs into the forest. 

 

* * *

 

_“You’re here,” she gasps, careful to keep her voice down as her shipmates bustle about the overcrowded Falcon. “How are you here?”_

_“Trust me,” Kylo sneers, his eyes never quite meeting hers. “If I knew anything about this, I wouldn’t be here at all.”_

_“Snoke said he created the bond. If that’s true, then wouldn’t it have faded when-”_

_He cuts her off with a scoff. “Snoke said a lot of things.”_

_And then – quieter, softer: “I’m beginning to realize that most of them were lies.”_

_She’s still reeling from the outcome of their time on the Supremacy, still hurt and angry and broken but –_ stars _, she wants so badly to hope that he means something more by that, wants so badly for there to still be the possibility of something more for him and them._

_He disappears before she can make a fool of herself once more, and she’s abruptly reminded of the fact that this is the man even the General has given up on._

 

* * *

 

“You left,” he says many hours later, when the sky has grown dark and the day’s negotiations have come to an end. She’s still in the forest, still trying to figure out if she’s running away or hiding or waiting. 

“I wasn’t needed at the meeting,” she shrugs, brushing past him as she finally comes to a decision. Running away it is, then –

– or at least it would have been if his hand hadn’t reached out to stop her, fingers encircling her wrist like a restraint.

“What’s wrong?” Kylo asks, with his voice like Ben and his eyes like Ben but she knows better than to fall for it again, knows now all the things she wishes she’d known before she risked everything for him.

Rey pulls her hand away. “Nothing,” she says, making a conscious effort to stay right where she is and ignore her restless legs. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just hungry, didn’t realize I’ve been out here so long–”

“Stop it,” he demands, everything about him turning cold and tense. “Stop lying to me, stop hiding from me, stop treating me like – like –” a hand tangles itself in his hair and _pulls_ as he struggles for words, his frustration and anger and hostility clouding his thoughts.

“Kylo–”

He goes abruptly quiet, hand falling back down to his side. “You used to call me Ben.”

It’s been months since she last called him Ben, but this is the first time he’s confronted her about it. It would be so easy – it _should_ be so easy – to just call him Ben again, to give him the reassurance and comfort he needs. But Ben is the man she’s mourned for the better half of a year, the ghost she’s woken up next to every morning since Crait. The man standing in front of her now is not Ben - not anymore, not yet.

“I’ve done _everything_ you asked of me!” he roars, all wild eyes and seething voice, all Kylo Ren. “I left behind everything I’ve ever known, I gave up the galaxy, I killed _everyone_ –”

“Only because you knew they were planning to kill you!” Rey counters before he can even think to feed her whatever pretty lie he must’ve told the Resistance. Once, she believed in Ben Solo and his ability to do the right thing, in his strength to turn his back on the Dark side and put an end to the war. Now she sees only Kylo Ren, the man who killed all of his commanding officers in order to stay Supreme Leader.

Kylo falters in his rage, his shoulders sagging as he warily meets her eye. “You know.”

“There was a bleed, two weeks ago. I was anxious and twitchy all day, paranoid even. And then that night I saw your dream, the one where Hux and the others killed you so that he could be Supreme Leader instead,” she leaves out the part where she couldn’t sleep for a whole week after that, not with the sight of his cold, dead body burned into her mind’s eye. “You have your issues, but unfounded paranoia has never appeared to be one of them. I knew something must have happened.”

“There is no love lost between Hux and me, so I knew he would not be content with serving me for long,” Kylo acknowledges, moving to lean against a nearby tree. “But I didn’t take him seriously until Phasma came to me–”

“She’s _alive_?”

“She almost wasn’t. That trai– _your friend_ ,” he amends under the weight of her glare, “put up quite a fight. I suppose there’s a reason he was always her favorite.”

Rey scoffs and moves to mirror his position, leaning on the tree right across from his. “I’m not so sure about that. Finn said she was always the hardest on him.”

“Because he was her favorite,” Kylo reaffirms as if it should be obvious. “Phasma is an excellent judge of skill, if not character. And she was right about FN– about _Finn_.”

“Are you… are you actually saying something nice about Finn?”

“He managed to hold his own against me in his very first lightsaber duel,” he shrugs, and maybe he’s not all Kylo Ren after all, not if he’s willingly bringing up this memory without any trace of anger or resentment. “That has to say something about his abilities.”

“What about me?” Rey asks, allowing the tiniest hint of a smile to tug at the corner of her mouth. “I managed to defeat you in _my_ first lightsaber duel. What does that say about my abilities?” She’s pushing it, pushing him, and she doesn’t know what she’s trying to prove here, can’t tell if she’d rather have him revert into his usual hot-tempered self at the reminder or–

Kylo smiles at her, all fondness and warmth and things she’d rather not think too much about right now. “You always were in a league of your own, scavenger.”

– or that.

She doesn’t want to think about the way he’s smiling at her, _can’t_ allow herself to linger on the way he makes _scavenger_ sound like _sweetheart_ , refuses to acknowledge the way her eyes burn and her heart aches.

“Why did Phasma warn you? Isn’t she one of Hux’s?”

“Like I said,” Kylo smirks, a knowing gleam in his eyes as if he can see her telltale flush even in the barely-there light that has snuck its way through the thick canopy of ancient trees. “Phasma is an excellent judge of skill, and she found Hux lacking. She’s also a soldier through and through, and ultimately her loyalty is to the Supreme Leader. So she warned me, and offered her help and her troops.”

Not that he had needed it. She’s been dreaming of Force chokes and lightsaber decapitations these last few nights, and there’s only one recent event to blame for it. “And then you slaughtered the entirety of the First Order’s high command,” Rey states evenly, her eyes focused on a distant spot beyond Kylo’s left shoulder.

“It’s not like I had much of a choice,” he snaps defensively.

 _Didn’t you?_ Rey can’t help but wonder. _I gave you a choice and you didn’t hesitate to squander it._ Some part of her knows she’s being unfair, knows that his rejection of her had nothing to do with Hux’s attempted betrayal, knows that anything less than the drastic measures he’d resorted to would have ended in his death.

“It’s getting dark,” she finds herself saying as she gets to her feet and dusts off fallen leaves and dirt. “If we’re lucky, there might still be a ration pack or two left for dinner.”

He trails after her in silence until the base comes into view; the fraction of the underground structure that protrudes from the ground exudes an inviting warm glow, and it suddenly strikes Rey that they might actually stay here for a good while now that they won’t have to constantly move to avoid being noticed by the First Order.

“Rey,” Kylo murmurs as his hand reaches for her wrist once more, albeit gentler this time. “What happens now?”

A vision, long since relegated to a hidden chest of dead dreams: a world of green and blue, an imposing set of arches, bright light pouring out from them and silhouetting Ben’s form as he takes her hand and they make their way into the light as one.

She doesn’t see how they’ll ever get from here to there, doesn’t know if it’s even a possibility at this point.

“Now we fight the others for dinner,” she tells him with a grin that feels more forced than she’d like it to. And because she still can’t bring herself to call him by the name he's trying to earn back, because the entire base had already seen them together earlier today, because _she wants to_ –

– Rey takes his hand and leads him into the closest thing either of them has to a home now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's interested, there's some bonus content for this fic: [an early (and significantly different) first draft of the opening scene](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/post/171780879965/deleted-scene), and [an outtake between Kylo and Finn set a day or two after this chapter](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/post/171834164155/outtake-1-finn-has-sent-you-a-friend-request).
> 
> This fic took more than a week to figure out, and it wasn't until this morning that I realized the reason I was struggling with it so much (aside from being intimidated as hell by all the amazing talent in this fandom) is because I was trying to write it as a one-shot, when it's clearly meant to be written in three parts. So yes, we've got two more chapters for these two to work things out.
> 
> I hope you guys liked it. Please feel free to leave a comment below or [come talk to me on Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com); I'd love to hear from you!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For A, without whom this fic wouldn't even exist. You are the most wonderful, supportive, encouraging, and loving friend a girl could ever ask for, and I truly do not deserve you. (Seriously, I don't. Stop fighting me on this.)

The days blur together, tense negotiations with his mother and sudden fights with Rey and a lifetime’s worth of unsaid words and hurt and regret between the three of them. He doesn’t know what he was expecting when he decided to get away from the bloody scene of his crime and head for the Resistance, but the pain in his mother’s eyes as she treats him like a stranger and the unpredictable fluctuations in Rey’s behavior toward him seem about right, given everything he’s put them through.

What he most definitely did _not_ see coming, however, was the unexpected camaraderie he would come to share with Finn and Poe. Four days after his arrival and three days since Finn invited him to join the ‘Rebel Scum’ dinner table (his words, not Kylo’s), he finds himself… _bonding_ with the former ’trooper over their mutual hatred for Hux.

“Poe!” Finn gasps between bouts of laughter after a particularly spirited retelling of that one time Phasma disobeyed a direct order from Hux and caused his face to turn as red as his hair. “Poe, you’ve got to tell him about Hugs!”

“Finn, that was months ago,” Poe grins, eyes sparkling with mirth. “Do you _really_ think he hasn’t heard about it yet? Good old Hugsy probably whined about it nonstop, didn’t he?” he asks Ben with a knowing smirk.

Kylo exhales a long-suffering sigh, one that is only partially for show. “Every day,” he affirms, dragging a hand down his face at the tedious memory of Hux’s seemingly-endless complaints. “Every kriffing day.”

The two men burst into a renewed round of laughter at that, and even Rose grins at his misfortune.

For a second, he forgets that he doesn’t belong here. For a second, he forgets that up until yesterday, Poe had been something other than his long-lost childhood friend, that up until two days ago Finn had been the traitorous FN-2187 he’d once tried to kill. For a second, he feels like things might actually be okay.

Rey’s chair scrapes against the floor, and the second passes.

“Hey, where are you–” Finn asks, his voice still lined with humor as they all watch Rey abruptly get to her feet and abandon her half-eaten meal.

“I’m tired,” she claims, pushing her tray towards the center of the table. “Take whatever you guys want.”

Poe frowns. “But you haven’t even–”

They watch Rey turn around and walk out of the mess hall in silence, too stunned by her sudden departure to stop her. Her absence seems to have sucked all the energy out of the group, and Kylo picks at his food while the others eat quietly. The lukewarm porridge hadn’t been that appetizing to begin with, and Rey’s actions have filled his stomach with enough dread and guilt and frustration for the night.

No matter how hard he tries to smother it, no matter how many times he tells himself he has no right to feel this way, there’s no changing the fact that Rey’s behavior – while completely warranted – is frustrating the hell out of him. If she’s going to be angry at him for the foreseeable future, he’d rather have her ignore him outright instead of this false sense of normalcy she keeps lulling him into only to shatter the illusion the second he lets his guard down.

“Excuse me,” he mutters, rising from his chair and striding out of the mess hall before anyone at the table has a chance to comment on him going after Rey. The Bond is still a barely-there whisper that doesn’t offer much assistance when it comes to locating her, but he’s been here long enough to know that even the late hour won’t stop Rey from going into the woods to clear her mind.

Sure enough, he rushes out of the building just in time to see her disappear into the thicket of trees that line the edges of the base.

“Rey!” he calls as he jogs after her, pushing himself into a flat-out run as her shoulders tense and her steps grow hurried. Soon they’re both racing through the forest, with only the occasional beam of moonlight making its way past the dense canopy to guide him through what is obviously familiar terrain to Rey. Not once does she stumble or trip on the sprawling network of roots and vines that line the ground, while Kylo finds himself reaching out for the nearest tree to balance himself multiple times.

Finally, they reach a clear lake illuminated by the two moons above it and their bright reflections on its surface. Rey comes to a sudden stop mere inches away from the water, and he can hear her cursing at herself under her breath as he closes the distance between them.

“ _Stop_ ,” she snaps when he’s a mere five feet away from her. “Don’t come any closer.” Everything about her posture and her voice reminds him of a battlefield, of the people he wishes they didn’t have to be anymore and the history he wants nothing more than to bury.

“Rey, please,” he sighs, exhaustion seeping into his bones as she tries to push them back into their old roles. “Can we just talk?”

With her back to him, it’s impossible to tell what she’s thinking during the minute of silence that follows. The lake is utterly still and completely silent, leaving only the occasional rustle of the trees to accompany their labored breathing as he waits for her to speak.

“It’s the wrong lake,” she murmurs, almost as if to herself. When she finally turns to face him, she looks as tired as he feels. “What is there to talk about, Kylo? It doesn’t matter that you’re here, not when we both know _why_ you’re here.”

They haven’t spoken of the catalyst for his arrival since the day he landed, since the last time they raised their voices at each other. He realizes now that he’d been so wrapped up in his anger at her cold reception, so caught off-guard by her knowledge of the truth, that he’d failed to disclose what she would probably consider a vital piece of the puzzle.

As if she’s heard where his thoughts have taken him, as if the Bond never faltered, Rey takes two steps closer to him and narrows her eyes. “Why _are_ you here? You’ve known for months that Hux was a threat, but you never planned to do anything about him. Even after you started feeling cautious and wary, I never saw or heard anything to indicate that you were planning to do something so drastic. And then the dream happened and the next day you slaughtered _everyone_. Why?”

“Did you really not hear what Hux said in the dream, right before he…” He falters as Rey flinches at the reminder, wonders how he would have felt if their positions were reversed and he had to watch helplessly as she was murdered.

“I wasn’t exactly focused on Hux,” Rey mutters, crossing her arms as she shifts to face the lake. “Just tell me,” she demands, her eyes trained on the twin moons swaying slightly upon the water’s surface. “Tell me why you’re really here. Tell me it was about more than just you.” _Please_ , he thinks he hears in his mind, even though the Bond is still silent when he nudges at it.

Kylo watches her carefully as he speaks, hoping to discern her reaction even though half of her face is hidden from him. “Hux found you,” he admits in a whisper, his throat going dry at the mere memory of the potential threat. “He found the base, and his plan was to capture me and make me watch as he destroyed this whole planet, as he killed you and my mother without any warning or any way for you to fight back or escape. And then he was going to kill me.”

He’s not expecting her to jump into his arms, not expecting her to cry or forgive him or reopen the Bond – he _wants_ her to, of course, but he knows better than to think Rey will be so easily moved. Even so, his lowered expectations could not have prepared him for her reaction.

Rey takes a deep breath, a slow, shuddering thing that makes him want to pull her close and tuck her head into the crook of his neck and just _hold_ her. And then she closes her eyes and says, very quietly, “Okay.”

“Okay?” he echoes incredulously a moment later, when it becomes clear that she’s said her piece.

“What else do you want me to say?” she asks, her hands falling lower to wrap around her midsection rather than her chest, a poor substitute for the embrace she clearly craves. But not from him, he reminds himself. From anyone _but_ him, most likely. “You killed a roomful of people to save us, but you’re still the man who would have killed us all on Crait if you’d had the chance to. You’re here to negotiate a peace treaty, but you’re still the man who chose power over a second chance back on the Supremacy.”

Kylo has never wanted to kill the past more than he does at this very moment. “But I’m _trying_ , damn it! I’m trying to fix things, I’m trying to make up for all of it. What do you want from me, Rey?” he finally demands, the last four days of uncertainty and rejection and disappointment finally catching up to him. “You don’t want me to be a part of the First Order, but now that I’m here you don’t seem happy about that either. You hate it when I fight with your friends, but you storm off the minute I start getting along with them.”

The anger leaves him just as suddenly as it had taken hold of him, and he finds himself left with nothing but a suffocating feeling of helplessness. “I am trying _everything_ I can possibly think of, and it’s still not enough for you. What more do you want from me, Rey? I tried to give you the whole _galaxy_ and it still wasn’t enough–”

“I never _asked_ for the galaxy!” Rey finally cries. As she turns to him, he watches the fire in her eyes and the firm set of her jaw give way to unshed tears and quivering lips. “I never wanted the galaxy,” she whispers shakily. “All I wanted was you. I wanted you to come back with me, I _needed_ you to choose _me_ , and you didn’t.”

“Rey…” He reaches for her then, relief flooding his every sense as she allows herself to be folded into his arms. “Rey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. But I’m here now. I’m–”

“For how long?" she asks, her voice muffled against his chest. When she moves to step away from him, Kylo doesn’t stop her.

“You’re here now,” Rey swipes away her tears in quick, almost aggressive movements. “But for how long? We both know you’re not staying,” she says evenly, states it as the fact they both know it to be.

He doesn’t try to convince her otherwise, doesn’t make even a token effort to pretend that it’s still up for discussion. “You know why I can’t stay, Rey. I don’t belong here.”

She stares at him for the longest time, arms wrapped around herself once again. His hands twitch with the need to pull her back and soothe the pain he’s responsible for, but he fears he’ll only hurt her more that way.

Rey shakes her head as if to clear it, squares her shoulders and returns her arms to her sides. “Ben Solo could have belonged here,” she says firmly, her defiant tone at odds with the longing and regret he sees in her eyes.

When she disappears back into the woods, he doesn’t follow. 

 

* * *

_“You’ve been blocking me,” he seethes, glaring at her from across the room. “Why?”_

_She’d ignore him if she could – it’s worked out quite well for her so far, and it’s good practice for when she needs to block out the world to focus on her meditation – but she has a meeting with the General in ten minutes and she can’t afford to let him distract her. Past episodes have taught her that for someone who’s supposedly in charge of a whole galaxy, Kylo Ren has more than enough time to stand around and shout at her until she’s baited into responding or the connection ends, whichever comes first._

_“My Bond is with Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren,” she states clearly, allowing disdain to color her voice. “So until you’re ready to bring Ben back to me, you can kriff off.”_

_That does the trick._

_“Ben Solo is_ dead _!” Ren bellows, eyes wild and nostrils flared. “I killed him just as I killed Han Solo, just as I killed Snoke, just as I’ll kill anything and anyone who stands in my way!” It’s an empty threat if she’s ever heard one, and they both know it. She levels a glare of her own back at him._

_“If Ben Solo is really dead,” Rey rasps, aiming for even and aloof only to land somewhere between a sob and a whimper, “then I wish this Bond would’ve died with him.”_

_Kylo Ren disappears, something almost like hurt flashing in his eyes as he does._

* * *

“Rey!" 

It’s quickly becoming a habit, her disappearing into the woods and him giving chase. Once, Kylo Ren would have happily chased Rey across the galaxy just for the thrill of it. The man he is now – the one he wishes she would consider worthy of the name she holds so dearly – would give anything to have her just _sit down_ for a minute and talk to him.

“Rey, please, we need to talk–”

“What’s the point?” she demands without even a moment’s pause or a glance at him. “What’s the point of talking, what’s the point of you even _being_ here if you’re just going to go back to being the kriffing Supreme Leader anyway?!”

“It’s not like I _wanted_ this,” he points out, careful to keep some measure of distance between them for now. “I would have given all of it up; I was _ready_ to give it all up. But the General–”

She whirls around in a flurry of loose hair and robes, evidence of how little time she must have had to prepare for this morning’s unannounced meeting. “Your _mother,_ ” Rey hisses at him, “is willing to have her victory tainted, willing to have her authority questioned and her new government _compromised_ , willing to give up all hope of getting her son back so that you can stay in power and evade trial. The least you can do is acknowledge who she is to you, _Kylo Ren_.”

“Is that really what this is about?” And here he’d assumed that the reason she’d stormed out of the meeting and made such a spectacle of the both of them was out of some vigilante sense of injustice, out of a lingering need to see him punished for his crimes. But – “It is, isn’t it?” he realizes as Rey’s eyes dart away. “All of this just because the rest of the galaxy will still know me as Kylo Ren?”

“All of this,” Rey seethes, “because you came here, because you made me _stupid_ enough to hope that…” She shakes her head and abandons that train of thought, and he resists the urge to grab her by the shoulders and ask what exactly it is she’s been hoping for because Maker knows he would do everything within his power to give it to her. “It doesn’t matter anymore. All of this, and you’re _still_ Kylo Ren.”

“Rey,” he sighs, rubbing at his forehead in an attempt to ward off the impending headache. “Rey, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Kylo Ren is just a name–”

“Kylo Ren is the name of the man who hurt my friends,” she reminds him, her voice rising with each subsequent sentence. “Kylo Ren is the name of the man who killed his father. Kylo Ren is the name of the man who called me _nothing_!”

He’d been willing to ignore her hurtful – and frankly, unnecessary – reminder about Han, but this… this he cannot let stand. “You still don’t understand!” Kylo finds himself raising his own voice as he roughly cards through his hair and tugs at the ends in exasperation. “In the grand scheme of things, in a galaxy that’s obsessed with dynasties and legacies and bloodlines, you _are_ nothing.”

She flinches – it’s almost imperceptible, her reaction at this echo of their most painful moment, but it’s enough for him to reach out and take her unwilling hands in his own, to hold them in place with more force than he’s used on her in months.

“But none of those things matter to me, and I don’t care where or who you came from, only where and who you choose to be.” She stops fighting against him for just a second, and he takes the chance to release one hand and cup her cheek instead. “This foolish, blind galaxy is too busy chasing _legends_ like Skywalker to see you for the absolute miracle that you are, this person you’ve made all on your own, this person who belongs to you and only you. But I see you,” he whispers, eyes searching hers for even the faintest glimmer of understanding, “and you are _everything_ to me, Rey.”

Something like a sob tears its way out of her throat, a pained, awful thing he never wants to hear again. She pulls him closer by the hand still wrapped around her own and winds her free hand around his neck as he moves to properly hold her.

“I was willing to stand trial, Rey. I was ready to pay for my crimes,” he confesses, lips moving against her temple. “But my mother wouldn’t allow it, not with the death penalty still–”

It’s muffled, but he thinks he hears a whimper from her as she pulls him closer. “I don’t want that for you either,” Rey whispers. “I don’t want you dead, and if being Kylo Ren is the only way to keep you alive then I don’t care. It’s just…” She pulls back as much as the embrace will allow her to without removing her hands or shrugging off his. “When you came here and you said you’d burned it all down, I thought…”

“I know, sweetheart,” he murmurs when she can’t find it in her to complete her thought, one hand coming up to gently comb through her hair as he pulls her back in. “I know.”

A few minutes pass in silence, and as much as he wants to live in this moment forever, Kylo eventually tries to step away and give Rey her space. She lets go of him only to take hold of his hand and guide him to the nearest tree, where she pulls both of them down with their backs against the tree and curls into him.

“When are you leaving?” she asks as he wraps an arm around her waist, and he stalls for as long as he can before answering.

“Tomorrow morning.”

Rey tenses for just a moment, and when it passes she moves so close she’s practically in his lap. “Can we… can we just stay like this for a while?” Her lips are warm against his neck and her weight is so wonderfully solid, so undeniably real after months of interacting with her only through their Bond and his dreams. He wants to tell her that they can stay like this for the rest of their lives, wants to promise her forever and everything, but he’s already given her enough false hope to last her a lifetime.

“For as long as you want,” he tells her instead, and they stay there until it’s time for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way longer than it should have. I'm not used to struggling this hard to get a character's voice down only to find myself second-guessing every single word I write anyway, so imagine dealing with that for _every single character_ in this fic. Hopefully it'll get easier and I'll get better with time and practice. 
> 
> Only one chapter left! Coming up soon: a return to Rey's P.O.V and a happy-ish ending. In the meantime, maybe check out these two outtakes if you wouldn't mind more of this fic or want to know how the guys stopped hating Kylo Ren: [outtake #1](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/post/171834164155/song-for-a-scribbled-out-name-outtake-1-finn) | [outtake #2](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/post/172075156715/song-for-a-scribbled-out-name-outtake-2-best).
> 
> As with most writers, I desperately require feedback and validation so please feel free to leave a comment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand we're done! I can't believe it. More rambling after the chapter. For now, go forth and enjoy the fluff.

The night before Kylo is scheduled to leave, Rey walks him to his room, says her goodbyes then and there because she knows she won’t be able to watch him get on his ship and fly away tomorrow, and goes through the motions of walking back to her own quarters and getting ready for bed.

One minute she’s all alone in the darkness, left with nothing but her thoughts and regrets and indecision, and the next she’s turning on her side to face Kylo.

“So this is still a thing,” he muses as he mimics her position, propping himself up with a hand on his cheek.

“Apparently,” Rey murmurs in agreement, allowing herself a small smile at the discovery. With her hands folded between her face and her pillow, Kylo seems to loom over her in a way that should make her uncomfortable, that  _would_  have made her uncomfortable just days ago. They’re no strangers to the Bond connecting them late at night, but she’s never allowed him to so much as look at her while they’re sharing a bed, never allowed herself the intimacy she only knows from dreams of Ben and whispered conversations and secret smiles.

When he returns her smile, all soft and sleepy and  _Ben_ , Rey can’t help the way her hand moves of its own volition to brush his hair out of his face, can’t help the way her fingers linger on his jaw long after she’s tucked a dark curl behind his ear.

He catches her hand when she tries to pull away, brushes a fleeting kiss along the inside of her wrist before lacing their fingers together. “I’m glad Snoke lied about the Bond,” Kylo admits quietly, eyes intent on their connected hands. “I’m glad he had nothing to do with the only good thing in my life,” he adds as their eyes meet, and Rey moves their intertwined hands to the back of his neck, pulls him down to touch their foreheads together as a poor substitute for the kiss she can’t give him.

“I’m glad we’re still Bonded,” she confesses in return, a silent apology for all the times she raged against his continued presence and vowed to sever the connection. “Even on Crait, even after everything that had just happened, a part of me was so relieved to see you again, to know that it didn’t die with Snoke.” For so long she’d hidden this away as a dirty secret, the unfortunate truth no one could ever know; now she offers it to him like a gift, like an apology, like forgiveness and hope and a chance at healing all contained within the simple truth that she could never bring herself to hate him, not really.

For the longest moment they remain in silence, hands and foreheads still joined even as he hides his eyes from her and lets her whispered confession sink into his aching bones. Rey holds him tight, pulls him closer so that half of him is practically on top of her and still she can’t bring herself to feel trapped in any way, can’t remember how she ever found the will to keep him away.

“I was so scared,” he finally says, face buried in the crook of her neck and lips brushing against her oversensitive skin with every word. She brings her free hand up to settle in his hair, gently running her fingers through it as he speaks. “ _Terrified_ , really, that Snoke wasn’t lying, that the Bond would actually die with him.”

Rey thinks of all the times he appeared even when she refused to acknowledge him, of all the times he willingly exposed himself to her anger just to see her for even a minute. “You were checking,” she realizes now. “All those times you forced a connection just to disappear seconds later – you were checking to see if you still could.”

He lifts his head to face her, offering her what appears to be an apologetic smile. “I had to. I couldn’t bear the thought of it, of losing the Bond after everything else.” 

While she was screaming about how little she valued the Bond, while she was threatening him and swearing up and down that she’d find a way to destroy it, while she was trying everything to keep them apart and block him out… while the Bond was the bane of her existence, it was the most precious part of his. A knot forms low in her belly, all heavy and unpleasant and–

 _“Stars_ ,” Rey moans pitifully as the knot triples in size and consumes her with guilt. “When I ignored you, when I pretended I couldn’t see you and you weren’t even there–” She wishes their positions were reversed, wishes she could hide  _her_ face now.

“I thought it was dying,” he admits quietly, his eyes averted to the unoccupied spot on her pillow.

She pushes at his chest, rolls them over so that she can throw her arms around him and hide her face in his neck. “I’m sorry,” Rey chants into his shoulder as his hands encircle her waist and their legs intertwine. “I’m so sorry I blocked you out, I’m sorry I let you think you were losing the Bond, I’m sorry I let you think you were alone again.”

“Shh,” he whispers soothingly, one hand running up and down her back. “You did what you had to do. I’m sorry I put you in that position. I’m sorry I made you leave the Supremacy on your own.”

“I didn’t want to,” she mumbles against his shoulder. “I had half a mind to drag you aboard the Falcon myself while you were unconscious.” They share a laugh at the idea of it, and she can feel the curve of his smile against her temple. His hands tighten around her waist, and Rey thinks she could fall asleep like this every night, wishes she could wake up like this for the rest of her life.

“Rey?” he asks a moment later, when she’s warm and comfortable and at the edge of sleep.

“Hmm?” It takes some effort, but she manages to blink herself awake and lifts her head up to see him all hesitant and thoughtful, faint lines appearing on his forehead and the corner of his lower lip caught between his teeth as he debates himself.

“Can I… After I leave, can I keep visiting you? Through the Bond, I mean,” he trips over his words, a clumsy, barely-decipherable mess, but she catches them all anyway. Competing tendrils of warmth and ice curl within her chest as her brain splits into two streams of  _yes anytime all the time don’t ever leave me alone again_ and  _don’t leave don’t visit just stay with me don’t ever leave me alone again._

“Only if I can visit you too,” Rey tells him instead, keeping a small smile on her face as she tries to choke down everything else.

He gives her a shy smile of his own. “I’d like that,” he says quietly, and she nods before her head finds its way back to the crook of his neck. They stay like that for a while, her eyelashes fluttering butterfly kisses against his neck and his hands warm and reassuring on her back.

Distantly, Rey notices Ben moving away from her, feels him gently place her on her back and pull the blankets up to her chest as the connection begins to fade. His lips are warm against her forehead, and she falls asleep to a murmured  _“good night, sweetheart,”_ and the half-formed idea of making her way to his room to climb into bed with him.

That night, they dream of a world of green and blue. 

 

* * *

 

_The day after she dreams of his death, Kylo appears to her with fear in his eyes and desperation in his voice._

_“Rey. Rey, please, if you can hear me, I need to know. This is important, Rey,” he tells her over and over again, following her around for the better part of an hour. She’s gotten good at tuning him out, at pretending she can’t see him at all. Weeks, even months, of practice have served her well._

_Still, she decides to skip dinner and locks herself away in her room earlier than usual. He’ll have to leave her alone once she goes to sleep, and she’d rather go to bed on an empty stomach than put up with his increasingly unhinged behavior._

_When she emerges from the ‘fresher, Kylo is sitting at the foot of her bed. “You don’t need to talk to me,” he entreats as she climbs into bed as if he isn’t mere feet away from her. “You just need to listen. Please, Rey, I need you to listen.”_

_She reaches out with the Force to switch off the lights and turns her back to him as she moves to sleep on her side._

_Kylo sighs. In the utter silence of her room, it is impossibly loud. “Something has happened,” he tells her. “I… I can’t keep going on like this, not if it means playing along with his plans.”_

_She almost asks who he’s talking about, almost slips up for the first time in two months._

_“I’m not trying to… to scare you, or guilt you, or anything like that. But I need you to know, I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person you wanted me to be, the person you deserved. And if… if you don’t hear from me in the next month, I need you to tell the Gen… to tell my mother that I’m sorry for everything I did to her, to our family.”_

_A lump forms in her throat. She’s lived through a war long enough to know what a goodbye sounds like, to know what a man marching towards his death sounds like. It feels like she’s choking on tears and fear and regret, like all the things left unsaid and all the things she might never get to tell him are suddenly fighting to be released._

_His weight leaves the bed and she can feel him standing behind her, closes her eyes and sees the way his hand reaches for her only to falter at the last moment. “May the Force be with you,” he murmurs, his presence already fading._

_The words bubble up her throat and past her lips without her consent, without her control. “And with you,” Rey whispers just as he flickers out of existence, his sharp inhale at her voice the last lingering evidence of his presence._

_She tries very hard not to consider the fact that those may very well be the last three words she ever says to him, tries so hard to blink away the image of his dead body that’s burned into her mind and the back of her eyelids._

_When she dreams of him slaughtering a roomful of First Order officers, it’s almost a relief._

* * *

 

When Rey wakes up the next morning, her mind still a jumble of blue and green, she finds herself packing her scant few belongings into a bag. The sun begins to rise as she makes her way to the edge of the base’s perimeter, where the Silencer has been parked in plain sight all week. 

She taps away at her datapad while she waits, preparing short notes for her friends and Leia to explain her temporary absence. By the time he shows up, the notes are ready and just waiting to be delivered.

His bag slides off his shoulder and  _thumps_ to the ground, but he shows no indication of having noticed. The way he looks at her, all sleepy confusion and hesitant hope, brings a fond smile to her face as she pushes herself off the Silencer and closes the distance between them.

“Rey? What are you–”

“That place you were dreaming of last night,” she cuts in, unable to hold back her curiosity any longer. He’ll have his answer soon enough, once she has hers. “The place you’re going to, where is it?”

“Naboo,” he tells her, still trying to make sense of her presence. “My grandmother was born there,” he explains when she simply cocks her head questioningly. “Her estate, Varykino, was passed down to my mother after the first war. She suggested that I stay there while she announces the treaty and tracks down what’s left of the Galactic Senate; it’s best if I make myself scarce while she talks them into forming a coalition government with the First Order.”

 _Out of sight, out of mind_  does not apply to him – Rey would know – but who is she to argue with the General?

Besides, she has more urgent matters to focus on. “The vision you had – was it in Varykino?”

His forehead creases in thought. “It was dark, but… I suppose it could have been. I haven’t been to Naboo since I was a child, but it definitely looked like nighttime in Lake Country.” It takes him a moment before he thinks to ask, “How did you know that?”

“I just…” And here she falters, the one part in her hastily-formed plan she isn’t entirely sure about. He’s told her multiple times that she turned in his vision, that she joined him and the Dark Side. Even though she has her suspicions about the truth behind their visions, the possibility that she’s wrong and the risk of seeing herself that way, of seeing  _him_ that way again, makes her hesitate. But he’s come so far, this man she can’t think of as Kylo Ren anymore, and Rey has enough regrets as it is; she refuses to add this to the list.

“Show me your vision?” she asks softly, offering him her hand as she wordlessly implores him to take this leap of faith with her.

He takes her hand, opens his mind, and everything falls together.

They’re drowning in darkness in his vision, trapped by towering mountains and surrounded by dark water. He’s facing Rey as the night presses against her back, as it tries to envelope her and smother the last bits of light reaching for her from some unknown point behind him. She stares at him for the longest time when he offers her his hand, and he can feel his throat dry and his pulse hammer and his heart clench in fear and rejection as he waits for her to make up her mind, wills her to take his hand and–

Rey is standing with her back to ancient mountains and lakes painted dark as the void by the night sky, her eyes entranced by the sight of him standing under the towering arches of Varykino, the warm light from inside the house forming a halo around his form as he offers her his hand, as he asks for a second chance and forgiveness and–

She takes his hand and his vision ends just as she smiles and steps towards him and his darkness.

She takes his hand and her vision ends as they walk into the light.

“Don’t you see?” Rey doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the idea of happy crying, but here she is smiling through tears. “You thought you were leading me into darkness and I thought I had to guide you into the light but Ben, you chose to go into the light, you found your way there and you took me with you.  _You_ found the–” She stops short at the sight of his sudden smile;  _from ear to ear_ , she heard Rose describe Finn’s grin once, and Rey thinks she understands that saying now, looking at him and the way his smile transforms his whole face.

“You called me Ben,” he points out, his eyes brighter than she ever thought possible.

Rey pauses for a second, clears her head of the sight of his smile and thinks back to–

“I did!” she realizes, her own lips stretching into a matching smile. “I did.” Her voice is half laugh, half sob, and a tidal wave of relief and joy and hope and  _love_ crashes through her so suddenly it pushes her up on her tiptoes, sends her barreling into him as her arms wrap around his neck to pull his lips down to her own.

Ben meets her readily, hands secure around her waist as he lifts her off the ground. She’s inexperienced and he’s smiling too widely and they’re laughing into the kiss too much for it to be anything like the ones she’s seen in holos, but her heart skips a beat and her stomach feels fluttery all the same.

“Hi, Ben,” she says when they part for air, her tears spilling over even as her smile grows so wide it hurts.

He laughs, low and throaty the way she’s dreamed of, and kisses her again. “Hi, sweetheart.”

In Varykino, they will spend hours tearfully apologizing to each other. For weeks after that, they will stay up entire nights trying to match inadequate words to their feelings. For months and even years later, they will find themselves spending whole days navigating their still-complicated future.

But for now, having Ben back is enough.

 

* * *

 

_this is a song for a scribbled out name_

_and my love keeps writing again and again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first Star Wars fic ever, but it's now the second one I've completed because this ship inspired me so much I ended up writing a Reylo one-shot _while I was taking a break from writing Reylo_. Shameless plug: if you like modern AUs, friends with benefits catching feelings, and fluff, [maybe check this out.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14139327)
> 
> Thank y'all so much for giving this fic a chance. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I hope to see you guys around sometime. I've got tons more Reylo planned (because this ship has taken over my damn life and there's no point fighting it), so hit me up on [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) if you're interested in keeping tabs on that.
> 
> As always, I would love to hear from you guys. If you have any thoughts/feedback on this story or just want to squeal about this ship with me, leave a comment below or write to me on Tumblr.
> 
> Again, thank you all for stopping by. See you around!


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